Football: CSU, Tulsa dealing with disappointment

Teams coming off losses to open season

TULSA, Okla. -- After each game, the head coach was left scratching his head.

Both Colorado State coach Jim McElwain and Tulsa's Bill Blankenship expected a lot more than what transpired in their season openers, starting with the fact neither walked away a winner.

The feeling was probably worse for Blankenship. He was the coach bringing in a team that had won a conference championship and a bowl game the year before. He also had at his hands an explosive offense with seven experienced starters, including his quarterback, top two running backs and a trio of wide receivers.

And when he went to light the fuse on that offense at Bowling Green ... Pffft.

It was 273 yards of total offense dud. Two missed field goals and a late fourth-quarter touchdown from the backup quarterback. And they all felt the sting.

"Just because the hype has been around this offense," quarterback Cody Green said. "Everybody knows that we have seven or eight guys that have significant playing time from last year that is on this unit. We have to show we're the veteran group."

For McElwain, the feeling was just a little bit different. He fully expected his team to be better, to be more mentally sound. And on defense, the Rams fell short of expectation. They lost track of the one guy they couldn't afford to and there was no pass rush.

So Saturday's game (5 p.m.) presents an interesting backdrop of two very disappointed teams desperately in need of a bounce-back performance.

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"Our performance wasn't necessarily as disappointing from the standpoint of how hard our guys played and how physical they played," McElwain said. "You just take those growing-pain errors away, and that's something we've got to do, and that's my responsibility. So we'll get that taken care of. I think both teams right now are coming in pretty hungry."

Tulsa has a few things going for it right off the bat. For one, they played on Thursday, three days ahead of Colorado State. And the Golden Hurricane are home, so the Rams lose another day to travel.

For good measure, Tulsa is also a team with a history of bouncing back. In going 11-3 and winning the C-USA title last year, the Golden Hurricane never lost successive games. And after losses, they bounced back with blowout wins. For that reason, Blankenship wasn't about to start from scratch this week, even when people were asking about quarterback and offensive line changes.

"The thing you have to be careful of, and again, this is from experience, you don't just throw everything out because something went bad," he said. "You really have to be careful that there probably were a lot of things we did right in preparation. Let's identify the things that need to get fixed and do that."

That was somewhat the approach the Rams were taking this week, too. Fix the mistakes and focus on individual tasks the help the common good. But what McElwain doesn't have is a group that is used to winning or has the reputation of coming back strong.

What he and the team has is a gut instinct.

"We are way more resilient," offensive guard Jordan Gragert said. "I feel we're bonded together, and there's not so much the blame game going on. We're banding together and working toward the next week instead of focusing on the past.

"We're going to come out and prepare the way we do normally for a team. We'll do our game, let them play, and we're going to play. We're not too worried about their mindset coming into. We're more worried about what we can do."

Early on, it should be expected that both teams focus on getting the running game started. Tulsa didn't get either Trey Watts nor Ja'Terian Douglas going (30 combined yards on 16 carries), and McElwain said the Rams got away from the running game too early. The Rams are also expected to be without three of its best weapons - running back Donnell Alexander and receivers Joe Hansley and Charles Lovett.

"We've got to get (Chris) Nwoke going in the run game, and we have to hit a couple of explosive plays down field. I thought we had a couple of opportunities we didn't take advantage of, and we hit a couple," he said. "The guys that get on that plane and the guys that go out to warmups, we definitely need somebody to step up. We need our offensive line to really take control. It's going to be a tough task, because they have some big buggers in there."

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